


Under the Rainbow

by azfell



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gay, Gay Pride, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Pride, Rainbows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25300396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azfell/pseuds/azfell
Summary: In which Crowley and Aziraphale wonder if they'll ever like the sight of a rainbow.Inspired by a comic by twitter user @valerie_sparkle!
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Under the Rainbow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [na](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/649240) by valerie_sparkle. 



Crawley figured he was supposed to love what he was looking at. Aziraphale told him it was called a rainbow. All Crawley felt when he saw it was disgust. It only reminded him of all those people, all those children, that God killed in the flood. Everything had just cleared up. The first rainbow was admittedly beautiful, but that didn’t change Crawley’s mind about it. It was God’s promise to never flood the Earth again. Crawley didn’t know why She did it in the first place. Those people She killed did nothing more than be human, nothing wrong. His disgust began to turn to anger, and even grief for all those people. 

Crawley turned to look at Aziraphale, looking up at the rainbow. He hadn’t said a word since it had appeared. He was smiling, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“It’s strange,” Aziraphale began. “Such a pretty sight… and I don’t like it at all.”

“The rainbow?” Crawley asked. He was a bit confused, he’d assumed Aziraphale would have loved it. 

“Quite unangelic of me, I know,” he said with a sad laugh. “Maybe one day I’ll actually enjoy standing under a rainbow.”

“I hope so. I don’t much care for it either,” Crawley agreed. 

“I don’t think God and I quite see eye to eye on the flood,” Aziraphale admitted. “I think… Well, I think you were right, Crawley.” 

Crawley figured that saying a demon was right, and God Herself wasn’t, was a pretty big deal to the angel. He returned his gaze to the rainbow, and pondered what Aziraphale had said. Would he ever like standing under it? He figured not, but he hoped he’d change his mind. 

Thousands of years went by. Crowley had been through quite a bit in those years, including a name change, but he never changed his mind about the rainbow. He always hated it. He knew Aziraphale felt the same. It was 1978, and Crowley had popped over to America to tempt some politicians (and to visit, it had been quite a while since he’d been). He was staying in San Francisco. He felt comfortable there in particular, because the city had a pretty big gay scene. Of course, Crowley felt no real attachment to human concepts of gender and sexuality. However, he did tend to change up the way he presented quite a bit, and he usually gave humans the impression that he was a man, and he did prefer having relationships with men, and had no intentions ever of hiding that. For those reasons, he felt comfortable and safe in the gay community and was beginning to quite strongly identify with it. Their relationships and ways of presentation looked as close to his as humans could get it. 

He was visiting some acquaintances he’d made at a community center that day. There was Jack and his partner Christopher, both gay men, Samantha, a trans woman, and Jess, a butch lesbian. They were having some sort of pride activity, though Crowley had no clue what. When he arrived, he found the group stirring fabric into colorful bins of water.

“What are you doing?” Crowley asked, extinguishing the cigarette he’d been smoking as he entered the room.

Christopher looked up from his purple bin. “We’re dying fabric for our rainbow flag,” he said excitedly. “Did you hear about it? It’s to celebrate pride in the community.” 

“I see,” Crowley said softly.

Crowley winced at the idea of a rainbow flag at first. It would take some getting used to, to say the least. He was never opposed to changing his mind about rainbows, he’d just never had any luck in doing so. He sincerely hoped that this new flag would do the trick. 

Demons really weren’t supposed to help people. But then again, demons also weren’t supposed to love and befriend angels. He wasn’t very good at his job to begin with. With that in mind, he headed over to an unmanaged dye bin and got to work. 

Over the years, the rainbow flag had grown in popularity quite a bit. It was a symbol of peace and love in the community.

Aziraphale had quite similar feelings as Crowley when it came to identifying with the gay community. “Gay” summed up his attraction as best as a simple human term possibly could, and he identified quite strongly with it. Humans tended to assume he was gay anyway. It was 1985 and he had lost a coin toss with Crowley on who had to come to America. He was beginning to suspect that Crowley cheated. 

He was walking down a street, grumbling to himself. “Why did I let Crowley convince me to come here… he’s so much more familiar with this continent…” Aziraphale wasn’t lost, but he also wasn’t not lost. 

At some point during his wandering, Aziraphale stumbled upon a rainbow flag on a wall. Crowley had told him about those, though he’d never seen one in person. He’d known pink and turquoise had been removed from the flag, though he couldn’t help but notice another difference than the one Crowley had described to him. A single black stripe at the button. It stood out. Aziraphale was sure it meant something, though he hadn’t a clue what it meant. He noticed stickers and pieces of paper pinned to the wall as well. “Trans rights are human rights,” one read. “Silence = violence,” said another. There were several, including some symbols like a pink triangle and two male symbols together and two female symbols together. 

Aziraphale heard someone come up from behind him. He didn’t move. The stranger stood next to him, marveling at the wall as well. 

“I hope we find a cure soon,” the stranger said solemnly. Aziraphale heard the grief and heartbreak in his voice. 

He’d heard about the American AIDS epidemic. He knew it was hurting the gay community bad. His heart ached for the man next to him, and everyone else who was affected by the disease. 

“That’s what the new black stripe is for,” the stranger continued. “To honor those who’ve passed away. If… when. When we find a cure, we’re gonna burn that black stripe.”

“I’m sure there will be a cure soon,” Aziraphale reassured the man, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

Aziraphale looked at the flag. He’d never liked rainbows, and the flag was taking some getting used to. He was coming around, though. He took great pride in the community, and his trip to America and seeing how his own community across the pond was suffering only solidified that pride and sense of belonging. The rainbow was feeling a little less harsh every time he looked at it. 

In the present day, the pair’s relationship with the rainbow had changed quite a bit. Crowley had decided to get dressed up for her and Aziraphale’s first pride together as a couple. She’d put on a flowy black dress and heels. Aziraphale was wearing the same thing he always wore, though his bowtie was rainbow today. 

“Ready to go, angel?” Crowley asked.

“Of course, darling,” Aziraphale replied sweetly. He adjusted his bowtie one last time before taking Crowley’s hand. 

In her other hand, Crowley held a massive progress pride flag. In addition to the rainbow, it had black and brown stripes to represent the people of color in the community. Next to those, it had blue, pink, and white stripes to represent and highlight trans members of the community. The new stripes were in a triangular pattern. This was Crowley’s favorite version of the flag, and Aziraphale was quite fond of it as well. 

The couple had never felt that they belonged to a community more than when they arrived at that year’s London pride festival. The rainbow no longer represented bad memories and lost lives in Mesopotamia from all those thousands of years ago. Now, the rainbow meant so much more to them. It represented their community, the struggles they’d faced, and all the progress they’d made. It represented love. Crowley and Aziraphale had never been so happy to be wrong about something in their lives, than the assumption that they’d always hate the rainbow.


End file.
